US Drone Attacks In Pakistan Could Well Be Doing More Harm Than Good

On Sunday, a US drone attacked an abandoned girls’ school in the
North Waziristan region of Pakistan, killing three Islamist
militants and wounding two,
The New York Times reports.

The attack goes directly against a mid-April Pakistani
parliamentary resolution demanding an end to the drone program,
the third resolution to be ignored.

And while U.S.-Pakistan relations have never been smooth sailing,
this time around, diplomacy will be more difficult than it has
been in the past because of one thing: elections.

With both countries are due for national elections soon (Pakistan
in early 2013 and the US in November 2012), expectations at home
are high and bluster may take precedence over conflict
resolution, despite deteriorating ties between the two countries.

The Pakistan government has clearly spoken out against
the strikes

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry on Monday issued a statement saying
the strikes "are in total contravention of international law and
established norms of interstate relations," the
AP reports.

The move was necessary because of the unpopularity of the drones:
Many Pakistanis believe the attacks mostly kill civilians, and of
course, there are many among the military and civilian population
who bristle at foreign interference on Pakistani soil. With
elections looming, populist maneuvers are vital, especially for a
civilian government
struggling to keep its hold on power.

There are some signs of a more tempered tone, however. Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has argued the parliamentary
resolution also said foreign fighters (like al-Qaeda and the
Taliban) must be expelled from the country and its soil should
not be used to attack other countries — a position that (tacitly
at least) suggests support for drone attacks. Gilani perhaps
knows that he needs to balance Pakistan’s growing anti-American
sentiment with pacifying the same Americans to keep the over $1
billion in military aid flowing into the country.

To America, the drones are the only option

Many in the US military establishment believes drones are the
only way to target Taliban and al-Qaeda militants who use
Pakistan as a base to attack American troops in Afghanistan. The
Pakistani military has repeatedly refused to engage them,
claiming its forces are stretched too thin by operations against
homegrown anti-Pakistan militants (although some feel the
reluctance stems from Pakistan’s desire to gain a stronghold in
Afghanistan once NATO leaves).

Pakistan has
demanded an unconditional apology from the U.S. in return for
reopening NATO supply lines into Afghanistan, closed after a
November drone attack accidentally killed 24 Pakistani troops,
but an April 15 attack on American troops by Pakistani militants
made that unlikely (the Pentagon now says both sides are to
blame, according to
The Washington Post).

Any backtracking or compromise now could be seen by the American
people as being “soft” on terror (a
recent Gallup poll showed just 15 percent of Americans now
view Pakistan favorably), and provide fodder to Republicans
looking for anything to show President Obama’s incompetence. In
an election year, it could mean political suicide.

Ultimately, the bad may well outweigh the good

“When a duly elected democratic Parliament says three times not
to do this, and the U.S. keeps doing it, it undermines
democracy,” a Pakistani government official told
The Washington Post. Washington needs to preserve Pakistan’s
fragile democracy to keep a necessary ally in the region, and
effectively showing the Pakistani people that their government is
powerless against the might of the U.S. is a huge blow to its
legitimacy.

The new strikes, the first since March 30, could easily provoke a
backlash against further negotiations with the U.S., whether on
aid or supply lines. It fuels the belief that the U.S. has no
regard for Pakistan’s sovereignty and is not a real ally, further
feeding into anti-American sentiment.